I remember back in 2005 when Realtors had some extra cash in their pockets. I was selling back then too, and I watched as many agents willingly gave thousands of dollars and their 16 digits over the phone to some web company who promised their site would rank on page 1 of Google, get them tons of leads, and ….. wait for it ….. you Realtors know this one …… ready …… “would pay for itself if you only sold just 1 house”. … So, did it pay for itself?
Oops, they forgot to mention that statistically you need to generate 1000 visitors to get 100 people to fill out your capture form, to get 3 people in your car, and (back then – when just about ANYONE qualified for a loan) get one person to the closing table. It’s A LOT harder now – but you already know that!
I know these numbers well because 75% of my real estate business was Internet driven. I closed a lot of business, and I had about 5 of my own self designed websites that were Search Engine Optimized (SEO), had tons of unique content, and tons of back-links.
Times have changed. It’s not about sheer numbers anymore. Today’s consumer (read that, Generation Y) doesn’t buy in to traditional advertising. Oh, and just in case you didn’t know, Gen Y will buy and sell more homes over the next 25 years than any other age group. Oh – and they do EVERYTHING online!
Nowadays it’s all about building TRUST. Trust gets you readers. Readers become followers. Followers become fans. Fans get you referrals. Referrals become clients. Clients go to closings. And Closings get you PAID. Trust is built over time, but when it starts coming together, those conversion number percentages go WAY up. So, how do you build trust, you ask?
Enter —- The Blog. If you generate fresh, unique content on a regular basis, you give readers a reason to come back, over and over. When you become the trusted resource for information in your city/town, people willingly subscribe to your blog, they keep coming back, and most importantly – TELL OTHERS about you. This referral base marketing IS how Gen Y chooses an agent. Bottom line, they won’t trust you until you give them a reason to, and they WILL trust their friends (referral sources) who are avid readers of your blog.
So what is the best blog platform? I could write a book about all the possible options you have here, but this is going to be long enough, so I’ll give you the answer right now!
It’s WordPress.org. WordPress allows you to create a whole site, generate content (write blog articles) and has so many Real Estate Plugins, the info you can provide to potential consumers dwarfs that of those other real estate website providers who are still focused on “capturing leads” with a gazillion forms. Gen Y is not dumb. They know a lead capture form when they see it, and if you want a bunch of personal info before you let them view your area listings, they’ll do a quick Google search and find another web site that won’t [ask for personal info]. So much for “lead generation”. The big bloated “form-centric” real estate website providers with their canned content and static web pages are looking more and more antiquated these days.
The New 800 Pound Gorilla
Out of the box, WordPress is like a vanilla scoop of ice cream. It’s plain, kinda boring – and does not command attention. It’s good, but it can be improved upon.
Enter “Themes”. Themes are what makes your website look, well – pretty … or cool, … or awesome …. or professional, … or WHATEVER you want it to look like which is exactly the point. There are thousands of themes to choose from, both free and paid. The good news is that there are real estate specific themes that help to showcase your listings, hook potential buyers, or whatever your goal. The “Theme” is the bowl your ice-cream is sitting in, and it can be whatever (color, shape, size, cheap or expense, complex or simple) you want it to be!
But you like more than just vanilla ice cream, you say? How about some nuts, hot fudge, whip cream, Oreo cookies, Butterfinger, cherry on top?
Enter – “The Plug-Ins & Widgets!” These “toppings” are the thousands of little programs and snippets of code written to hand tailor your blog site to however you want it to be. Don’t like nuts? Skip that plug-in. Want sprinkles instead? Do a search in the plug-in “Vault” for sprinkles – I’m sure you will find one!
The point is that WordPress was developed in a way that allows 3rd party programmers to develop plug-ins for everything. Stuff like “Share Plug-ins” so that when a reader likes your blog post, they (with one click) can “share it” with their sphere on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious, or any of hundreds of social sites on the Internet. This gives your article the chance to go viral (to be passed quickly all over the Internet giving you tons of publicity) – for FREE! How cool is that!
The holy grail! (Close your eyes and hear the angels sing – Aaaaaaaaahh) Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The best website in the world won’t have traffic unless people can find it on the search engines. Don’t know how to do SEO yourself? There’s a plug-in for that!
Wanna eliminate spam? There’s a plug-in for that!
How about onsite Analytics? Who’s visiting your site? What are your most popular pages? What are your referring sites? What keywords are people using to find your site? Isn’t this stuff you want to know? There’s a plug-in for that!
How about Social Media Widgets? If someone likes your blog article, they are very likely to “connect” with you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or elsewhere on the web. Make it easy to build a following with these Social Media widgets.
How about Real Estate related Plug-ins? You can get an IDX Plug-in that puts those other sites to shame. Trulia, Zillow, and Altos all have plugins. You can get Local School & Govt info. The list goes on: Real Estate Finders, Real Estate Maps, Real Estate Charts, Real Estate Q and A, Real Estate Forms, mortgage calculators, interest rate trackers, I’ve got about 75 more, should I go on? I think you get the point.
Want to embed YouTube videos on your website / blog articles? WordPress seamlessly integrates with YouTube embed code, or any other video host provider you might want to use.
Photo integration? Just as easy! Slideshow integration? Just as easy!
So, at the end of the day, you have this platform (WordPress) that looks gorgeous (Themes), and has all the functionality you could possibly dream about in a website (plug-ins, widgets, embed code) and we haven’t even gotten to the best part.
The best part is that WordPress is FREE! Yeah – FREE! Guess what else? A large number of plug-ins are free! Sure, you’ll pay for a kick-butt IDX, and not all of the big brand “information repositories” are free, but amazingly – the social media, spam blocker, SEO, website analytics, and other great tools are still free.
What do you need to get started with WordPress.org?
1. Patience – The number 1 option for having a killer real estate website is not the easiest option. Slow down, deep breath, inhale thru nose, exhale thru mouth. Repeat as necessary. (Price – FREE) Now attack!
2. A domain name (your website URL) – You can use your existing one, or register a new one. My favorite registrar is BLUEHOST.COM, but GoDaddy.com or Hostgator.com
work fine. (Price ~$10/year)
3. A Linux based web host. WordPress is a Content Management System written in PHP using a MySQL back end. You NEED Linux for this. You dont need to know what that means if you just go with one of these recommendations. Again, BLUEHOST.COM is my number one choice, followed by GoDaddy.com and Hostgator.com.
(Price ~$10/month)
4. WordPress.Org – Go to their site and download the platform. (Free)
5. Install WordPress – See the Famous 5 Minute Install Directions Here
6. Pick a Theme – There are 1000’s of them HERE. My favorite Themes are the DIY Theme with the Thesis Theme Framework and StudioPress Themes. StudioPress even has a killer Real Estate Specific Theme.
7. Get some super duper plugins – Click HERE (Mostly Free – some paid)
8. Pay for a great IDX Plugin – My favorite is dsIDXpress (Paid)
9. Use Social Media to let people know about your new website / blog (Free)
10. Add content. Blog like crazy, be active on social networks, go to local networking meetups, build a following, get referrals, and make some money.
REMEMBER! You CAN do this all yourself for very minimal cost. None of it is very hard, its just time consuming. You can also elect to go with the less robust WordPress.com. WORDPRESS DOT COM doesn’t have the enormous flexibility as its WordPress.ORG counterpart, and you are very limited in the number of plug-ins, widgets, themes, and the amount you can personalize, or customize your site – BUT – it is an EASIER implementation option.
If you still want ALL the BENEFITS of WordPress.ORG and you don’t have the time, or just don’t have the patience to dive in to a project like this, I can help. I do full scale WordPress Implementations. Give me a call if I can be of any assistance.
Steve Schwartz is the owner of Amazing Video Tours / AVT Marketing. Your one stop shop for all your online marketing needs
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